My name is Lachlan, I’m a web designer/developer, 34 years old, and today I decided to quit smoking for good.

I’d been thinking a lot about quitting cigarettes this year, my habit has been getting out of hand and my health suffering accordingly. Like many of you reading this I’ve tried everything to stop smoking in the past, gum, patches, even tried free hypnotism to stop smoking… Nothing really worked and somehow I’ve always slipped back into it so I’ve decided I need a decent plan to stop smoking.

I’ve come up with a set of tools to help me stick to the smoke free plan, and then stay quit!

The first thing I’m doing (and you might have guessed this one already…) Is starting this blog. That’s right, I figure a public diary of my efforts should be a strong deterrent to picking up those smokes again. I just don’t think my pride can handle having to say publicly that I have failed. But in case this does not prove a strong enough smoking deterrent on its own I’m also doing a few other things.

I’ve grabbed myself a copy of Allen Carr’s – Easy way to Quit Smoking. A number of my friends have read this book and found great success with it, even claiming they felt no withdrawl symptoms and quit smoking immediately after finishing the book!

I’ve never quite been able to believe a book would be able to alleviate my chemical withdrawl from nicotine dependency… but hey! here’s hoping this one sets me well on my way to giving up smoking. I’ll be reading this over the next week and getting back to you all on my progress and just how successful Mr Carr’s method is. I like the idea of this because I’d like to give without using quit smoking medication.

I’m also calling the local quit line, our region is lucky enough to have a sponsored service that provides heavily subsidized nicotine gum and patches. I’m ordering some of these in as I remember feeling horrible shakes and depression last time I attempted to quit. This time it will be different.

Finally I’m doing a couple of things that seem small now but I assure you they’re going to be equally challenging when the time comes – I’m giving up alcohol for one month and making a resolution to exercise regularly.

These two seem relatively minor but, although I am not a heavy drinker I am partial to a cold beer at the end of a day’s work, not to mention a nice glass of red when my partner and I are catching up with friends in the weekend for dinner… The problem is that just one drink will leave me with an uncontrollable urge to light up, and that can’t happen.

This is going to be HARD. I’m hoping the exercise helps alleviate some of the cravings, but doing it every day along with everything else is going to require a lot of discipline.

So that’s it, my multi-pronged plan of attack to stop smoking can be summed up by the following 5 tasks and tools I’ve committed myself to:

1. Blogging about it – A diary of progress to keep me focused on quitting.
2. Reading Allen Carr’s – Easy way to Quit Smoking.
3. Keeping my Nicotine patches and gum on standby to help fight the urge to smoke.
4. Giving up alcohol temporarily to mantain focus and willpower.
5. Getting regular exercise.

Fingers crossed I have the strength to get through this, The proof will be documented right here on this blog and I hope this will provide encouragement to others who read about my stop smoking challenge in the future.

Lastly, and you’ll laugh at this, I haven’t actually given up smoking yet. Yes that’s right, I’m just finishing the prep work and making sure I have all my resources in place. The final step is to smoke my last cigarette… And I’ll be letting you know how that goes very soon.

Kind regards

Lachlan